Space Computation is around us

This is summarizing post in my blog. Everything, that we've learn during this few days have changed our way of looking at certain things. Asking is a space computation around us is just the same thing as asking if there is life somewhere in outer space. People live their lives and don't see how complex our universe is and how much science stands behind it. We are surrounded by computations and we really don't see it. Same as other life in space, if there is almost infinite number of galaxies with billions systems and billions planets, there have to be some other organic forms of life. It's just probability.

People will always want to know where is their place in our universe. Why they are here? Are they alone? This questions sooner or later will be answered, but they cannot be answered without space exploration and the most important thing in space exploration is computation in space.

NASA's computation in the past

The Model 95 - two of which were installed in 1968 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. - were used to solve space exploration problems requiring unusually high computation speeds. The machines were capable of computing 14-digit multiplications at a rate of over 330 million in one minute.

Students form Białystok have ashamed the NASA

Team from Białystok and their robot Magma2

 Mars rover MAGMA2 built on University of Technology in Białystok has won in international championship University Rover Challenge in the USA.

Polish robot success was achievable only thanks to very original approach. Students used few small helicopters floating above the robot and scanning the area, looking for obstacles. No one has ever used this technology.

Competition held at the American desert in Utah, close to the simulation of the "Mars Society" Mars base. During three days the teams had to perform complicated tasks, including reconnaissance of the terrain, searching for signs of life in the soil samples and to provide an injured astronaut medical package. One of the tasks was to arrival at the base and an examination of a sample of rock. Jeep brought in this case six samples, which caused confusion among the organizers, who were not sure whether this is consistent with the regulations. Finally they said that this is not prohibited. One of the six samples was taken for presentation, where, thanks to the blue light scattering method, students have detected the presence of chlorophyll.


That's quite amazing, that Polish Universities of Technology can compete on international stage in such complicated technological aspects.

NASA starts The NEBULA program

NASA starts The NEBULA Cloud Computing Platform.

We can read on their site:

"Nebula is an open-source cloud computing project and service developed to provide an alternative to the costly construction of additional data centers whenever NASA scientist or engineers require additional data processing. Nebula also provides a simplified avenue for NASA scientists and researchers to share large, complex data sets with external partners and the public."

So this cloud will help all of NASA employees to analyse and process data remotely, that's a very efficient, time saving and money saving solution of processing so much data at one time, on which NASA operates.

Students crashed NASA's satellite

NASA asked students of The University of Colorado to destroy their own satellite. ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation) stopped working after seven years of working and there wasn't any solution to restart it back. This satellite was collecting informations about the thickness of ice in the different parts of the Earth, but, from unknown reason, it stopped working. Scientists decided to destroy it.

NASA - ICESat

Students have had very difficult and unusual task. They had to find and possible way to use last fuel container of the satellite, to guide it just into to the Barents Sea. Team was formed from many students and scientists. They have managed to make a command for the satellite, which was took back to Earth in 30th of august. 

Team worked very hard. They had to make complicated computations, to determine, where the satellite is and predict it's trajectory. They've worked for seven days in the week, until plan of destroying the satellite was ready. 

Whole operation was ended successfully and students gained much experience. They worked for NASA and that's quite cool in my opinion. This is why I'll study at the Electronics and Informatics department on my University of Technology in Gdańsk

If you ever wondered how to calculate the orbits of bodies and their trajectories, we have a whole page dedicated to the equations.

Iridium flares

Have you ever think what happens when a sunlight reflects from the satellite?

The answer is this:

An iridium flare on the night sky

A huge flash across the sky just for a second.

The most spectacular flash happens when the ISS (International Space Station) reflects the sunlight back to earth.

There is a website called "Heavens Above", which can calculate where and when those flares will occur with approximation of 1 second! That's very accurate approximation, so if you want to see this flash, you have to find a place outside the city lights, check it's coordinates, visit this site, write down a time, when this even occurs and the azimuth and just go to that place and watch the sky!

In my humble opinion, this effect is worth seeing. I've seen it many times and it's really great. I just wonder what algorithms can predict those events so accurately.

How do you land on Mars?

Did you ever think about landing on Mars and the technology, which is behind it? This short animation can help you understand which of the landing technologies were taken in to consideration when launching spacecrafts to the Mars. Finally the first option was used when the Spirit and Opportunity was sent toward the Mars.

In my humble opinion, the most interesting option still is the third one, but from the far as I can see, it looks the most complicated.

Can you imagine, how many computer simulation were done before sending those spacecrafts into space?

Credit for Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nearest NASA mission.

Right after NASA withdrew from the service space shuttles, they have also provided information about future missions, which can improve our knowledge about outer space and physics that rule it.

Disturbance Reduction System

An artist's concept art about DRS (Disturbance Reduction System)

 Let's see what information about this mission NASA site provides.

"The Disturbance Reduction System, or DRS, designed as part of the Space Technology 7 project, is an experimental system for measuring gravitational waves in space, which are thought to contain important data about the history of the universe. The system will be incorporated into the European Space Agency's LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, launching in 2014 to test key technology for a future ESA/NASA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission."

The humanity provide us with another tool to understand surrounding us universe. Gravitation is quite a mystery for our kind, people want to know everything about it, this knowledge help us with other projects.

Credit for Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Simulating the future of the solar system!

This is how Jupiter looks like in present days from the surface of it's satellite Io.

Hello guys and gals. I had surfed through the NASA website and guess what I have found.

Yep, you are right. Simulating our Solar System isn't a big challenge for NASA, that's not a surprise, but they are providing it and sharing with everyone who is interested in space and how did it looked 10 years ago. You can find it here! It can also provide very accurate simulation of any know space object in space until year 2025!

We can check how many kilometers will travel Voyager 1 after 47 years of its journey! It's almost half century and NASA thinks that it will be kicking as well as on the day it was lunched.

Spacecraft Voyager "seen" from the Pluto in the year 2024.
It has traveled more then 26 billion kilometers and
moving toward the nothingness at amazing speed 61 thousand kilometers per hour!

Those are only few examples of results of this simulation tool., but we can provide almost everything that we can think. Do you want to know how does The Earth look like from The Moon? No problem. Didn't you know how The Europe look like? Now everything is possible. Go check it out here: NASA Solar System Simulator.

Credit for Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Space Shuttle

Space Shuttle was the biggest step in human discovery of space. It was first partially reusable launch system and orbital spacecraft for human space flight missions.

It was the most complicated and also the most expensive "device" that could make the biggest breakthrough in human history. There was no such part of the science which didn't helped to build, upgrade and maintain this vehicle.

Sadly, it was retired from service in 2011 after 135 flight missions. It was the longest part of the history of space exploration by humankind.

Our blog is growing!

Our blog is growing!

I've added the section about our universe, where you will find whole bunch of useful information about our universe and technologies that allow us to describe it as it really is.

Observable Universe

Two words about me and space computing

My name is Matthew and I was always interested in our universe, it's secrets and the whole technology that helps us to understand it.

This Blog will be dedicated to Space Computing. I'll try to investigate all possible topics and make conclusion at the end. I'll start from the advanced science, where you the most talented people or the biggest brains of our nation can participate. Going further, I'll mention about the students like me, who are changing our vision of humankind in the universe.